Day 26 (Tuesday 11-15-2011): Osceola to Omaha, NE (and then to Philly via bus!)

The surprisingly rolling run-in to Omaha

So, over a year after the fact and I finally return to finish off my reporting about my 1/2 XC trip...  Sorry for the delay folks!  I figure I'll wrap this trip up, then work backwards on some of my other biking adventures like my recent Texas/Oklahoma trip, various summer trips up to NYC and beyond, possibly some bike racing trip adventures, and my month long vacation to Tenerife and mainland Europe.

Anyways, back to Nebraska.  If I had headed shortly down the road into Osceola proper the previous night I probably could have stayed the night in their free public park that had RV hookups and looked to have bathroom facilities (not sure if they were open though). Oh well, no big loss.

Nothing to note (or that I remember at least!) for the first half of the day until I got to the small town of Wahoo where I stopped to try out a kolache on the recommendation of Tim and Bev. Unfortunately, they had run out of them for the day by the time I arrived, but I did have some other pastries (donuts if I'd have to guess!).

After lunch, it was onward to Omaha. The plan when I got there was to head to the bike shop that had held onto a bike shipping box for me, bike the 2 miles to the FedEx store carrying the box, pack it up and ship it home (using my voucher that I had won in a bike race earlier that year) then walk almost three miles to the bus depot that would start me on my voyage home. In the outlying suburbs of Omaha I stopped in a Walmart to pick up a cheap duffelbag to store all my gear that I wouldn't be able to ship back due to size/weight restrictions (my memory fails me if I bought any donuts there!)

According to Wikipedia, Omaha is a bit smaller geographically than Philadelphia, but it sure didn't seem like it.  I spent seemingly forever biking through the outskirts of the city along busy thoroughfares.  There was so much traffic and no breakdown or bike lanes that I ended up biking on the sidewalk a good amount. Thing is, there aren't too many curb cuts so crossing streets was often quite annoying. I did get off the main roads for portions of my passage through the city which was a refreshing change of pace. The houses and streets didn't seem too far removed from suburbia in the East coast. Definitely no rowhouses or townhomes though, at least where I passed through!

Final bakery stop :(

Along the way to the bike shop, I passed a giant bakery/cafe/catering place called Wheatfields that I just had stop by. Browsing through their giant selection of delectable looking desserts, I saw something awesome covered in a caramel sauce that I just had to have to send me off proper from my trip. Turns out, it must have been a day old or something as it was marked down to just one dollar! Best dollar I think I spend on the trip!

Only a buck!

After that stop, I actually became a bit concerned about making it to the bike shop and shipping place on time thanks to my lollygagging earlier in the day taking all of these beautiful photos that you see arranged before you as well as my food stops. I ended up hopping on a bike path for a bit, then through some more neighborhood streets before coming upon the bike shop nestled in a strip mall.  Picking up the box from the shop was quick and easy.  Biking to the shipping place was anything but...

I definitely underestimated the hassle of this final biking endeavor, especially with no shoulders or bike lanes to bike on during rush hour traffic in a congested city and effectively being forced to ride on the sidewalks which are not always known to have the smoothest and most level of surfaces. Not to mention the lack of curb cuts that forced me to stop pedaling, put my feet down, loft the front and then rear of my 75+ pound bike over the curb, and then attempt to smoothly get going again with one hand on the handlebars with the other propping myself up on the box while at the same time trying to pick it up as I actually started pedaling away! Needless to say, I unceremoniously fell within the first block of leaving the bike shop.  I gradually got the hang of it, but stopping and starting was still very slow and cumbersome and usually took a few attempts. Eventually I strung some parachute cord between opposite 'handles' on the box to make a huge 'satchel' carrying system which made it much easier to carry.

I finally got to FedEx store (*see bottom of post for more info!) less than ten minutes before they closed. Thankfully, the only guy working there was friendly and understanding and didn't mind waiting the thirty or so minutes it took me to disassemble my bike and pack as much as I could into the bike box to ship home (Mega Bus does not accept bikes). That left me with one pannier and my newly acquired duffel bag packed pretty full of stuff. 

As I still had some time to kill I walked across the street to the Westroads Mall and sat down in the food court and had a runza from the Runza fast food joint. I would have to say, I enjoyed it better than the one I had from the small town bakery! Then again, I'm the type of guy who enjoys Steak'umms better than 'authentic' Philly cheesesteaks... While sitting eating, I had an interesting conversation with a man who came up to me asking me what the spot price of gold (or was it silver?) was (I was on the internet on my laptop). He was waiting to confirm a quote from a local jeweler or gold/silver marketplace in the mall and obviously was not impressed with the offer when I pulled up a quote for him. We chatted for a few minutes about silver, gold, biking, and life in general before we both headed our separate ways.

A runza from the chain - surprisingly better than from the small bakery!

I'm not sure what was worse - biking with a huge bike box in one hand, or walking with a cheap duffel bag with a horribly padded strap and a pannier with only a little un-padded hand loop, both laden down with quite a bit of weight.  Within a minute or two, I had stopped and changed up my carrying position. Over the next two and a half miles, I must have stopped twenty times and tried out every single combination of holding positions possible for both bags. My sub 20 minute mile pace that I expected to do with ease also came dangerously close to missing the bus departure - I was the last one to board (nice and sweaty and sore!) with about 5 minutes to spare.

And with that, the fun biking part of my journey came to a close! My Mega Bus adventure took me from Omaha to Chicago, Chicago to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Pittsburgh, and finally Pittsburgh to Philly. I had an 8 hour 'layover' in Pittsburg and as Megabus did not have terminal I walked over to the Greyhound terminal and set up shop there. Luckily, I did not get asked to produce my ticket like a guy sitting pretty close to me had to! I guess they ask if you look out of place or homeless so that it doesn't become a hangout for homeless people and degenerates. It was pretty cold outside and I would have been miserable waiting around for hours for my bus! I decided to go the bus route as it was just as fast as taking Amtrak and about half the cost (under $100 total, including a $5 Omaha to Chicago fare and a $1 fare from Cincinnati to Pittsburgh!). Flying would have been about four times as expensive. I returned to my apartment early Thursday afternoon but come to find out coaching was cancelled later that afternoon so I guess I could have kept biking for a few more days and returned home on Sunday or Monday but oh well - it was nice being home again! That evening I did a fairly hard road ride with some friends and boy did that feel weird! I almost flopped over the first time I stood up to get out of the saddle and my steering inputs were way more than needed on a road racing bike so I was wobbling all over the place for the first few minutes. Taking one hand of the bars was a pretty risky endeavor, let alone two! However, by the end of the ride I had mainly accustomed myself to riding a ~16 pound road bike again and I had an absolute blast flying up and down hills as well as cruising around on flat ground at speeds close to double what I was doing on my trip. That night I slept close to 12 hours after only getting some fitful sleep during my day and a half bus ordeal (I can't sleep sitting up in most cases and didn't want to fall asleep in the bus terminal and not be able to keep an eye on my stuff)

*While I'm writing this and looking at Google Maps to see the walking mileage, I noticed a FedEx store right next to where I got on the bus. I don't want to look into it to closely (such as closing hours) for fear of realizing that I could have shipped my bike from there and walked a hundred yards instead of almost 3 miles!

Today's route: http://app.strava.com/rides/2487845

I think I'll write up one more short blog post about my general thoughts about the trip before moving on to some of my other biking adventures from this past year.  Keep your eyes peeled!